Sunday, February 26, 2006

The Journalistic Triumph of Michael Crichton: BLOG: SciAm Observations: "In these days of James Frey's phony memoirs becoming best-selling nonfiction, why shouldn't a novel full of half-truths and misleading nonsense win a journalism award? And so in that spirit of 'reality sucker-punching irony into submission,' let's have a round of applause for Michael Crichton, whom the American Association of Petroleum Geologists has honored with its Journalism Award for those hard-hitting journalistic classics State of Fear and Jurassic Park. "

I'm a bit surprised and disappointed to read this type of nastygram -- I suspect people who read State of Fear, including Crichton's comments at the end of the book, understand he was trying to make an important point about the politics of fear. With his ability to reach and influence a large, mainstream audience, I think his thesis was far more important than any simplifications/etc. he made about research related to global warming.